research

In South Carolina, twenty farmers from fifteen counties will participate in South Carolina Department of Agriculture’s (SCDA) 2018 Industrial Hemp Pilot Program. Throughout the state, 131 applications were submitted for the pilot program. Participants were selected based on agriculture experience, geographic balance across South Carolina, accredited college/university partner, purpose of the crop, processor experience and the ability to secure needed equipment and financing.

Farmers in the pilot program will be working with the University of South Carolina, Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, Clemson University and USC Beaufort.

The Louisiana State University (LSU) Ag Center and Southern University Ag Center will soon be joining the University of Mississippi as an official medical cannabis producers.

Recently, the Louisiana Legislature passed a law allowing LSU and Southern University to cultivate and produce medical cannabis. The research will include extensive studies on cannabis to treat HIV, AIDS, cancer and seizure disorders.

“The medical research on this, in terms of marijuana, is lacking in general. We have a lot of antidotal information, but not a lot of real clinical studies of if you do this, you get this outcome,” said vice president of LSU agriculture, Dr. Bill Richardson.

The University of Florida and Florida A&M University both qualified to spearhead the state's pilot hemp project

By Michael Bachara
Hemp News

Florida farmers are looking for an alternative cash crop, with citrus production down. A new law, SB 1726, signed by Gov. Rick Scott on Friday gives universities in the state with a college of agriculture permission to research hemp.

In the midst of an opioid epidemic in the United States, research studies show that using cannabis to treat chronic pain is a safer, less addictive alternative to narcotics.

In 2014, in a study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers found that “in states where medical cannabis is legal to manage chronic pain and other conditions, the annual number of deaths from prescription drug overdose is 25 percent lower than in states where cannabis use is illegal. The study was published in the Aug. 25th issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

The processing plant fibers are being developed to create furnace filters and filaments for 3D printing

By Michael Bachara
Hemp News

Sunstrand, a Louisville-based hemp processing plant, is a biomaterials company that processes hemp, kanaf, flax, and bamboo for industrial and technical applications. In 2014, the business started in Okolona, after Kentucky allowed industrial hemp. The company's new 25,000-square-foot plant is more than four times larger than its original location. The company has contracts with several Kentucky farmers to grow hemp, and their fibers are being developed to create furnace filters and filaments for 3D printing.

An oil derived from the cannabis plant sharply reduces violent seizures in young people according to a study published last Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study focused on patients with Dravet syndrome, a severe type of epilepsy.

"This is the first solid, rigorously obtained scientific data that a marijuana compound is safe and effective for this problem," said Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at New York University Langone Medical Center and primary author of the study.

According to the research, the administration of the non-psychotropic component significantly helps heal bone fractures

By Michael Bachara
Hemp News

Cannabis was used as a medical remedy by societies around the world for centuries. Therapeutic use of cannabis was banned in most countries in the 1930s and '40s due to reefer madness campaigns without merit. Significant medical benefits of cannabis in alleviating symptoms of such diseases as Parkinson's disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder are being discovered by researchers throughout the world.

Researchers at Washington State University (WSU) are seeking volunteers for their study to develop a breathalyzer that detects social cannabis use.

Volunteers will be paid $30 an hour for the first hour and $10 for every additional hour.

To comply with Washington state law, test subjects must be at least 21-years of age to participate in the study.

The breathalyzer would need to accurately detect “acute exposure” to tetrahydrocannabinol, WSU Professor Emeritus Nicholas Lovrich, doctoral candidate Peyton Nosbusch and City Councilor and research assistant Nathan Weller told the Pullman League of Women Voters last Thursday.

Participants will receive a blood test and a mouth swab for the study. The volunteers will then pick a strain from a Washington state-licensed retail cannabis store, and consume it at their residence.

After consumption, a taxi will pick up the volunteers and take them to Pullman Regional Hospital to complete secondary testing for the study.

Additionally, the study will have participants submit to a standard sobriety test conducted by local law enforcement officials.

Majority of Minnesota Medical Cannabis Patients Saw Benefit in Program’s First Year

By Michael Bachara
Hemp News

Based on patient surveys and other data, a significant number of patients who used medical cannabis during the first year of Minnesota’s marijuana program reported benefits, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Less than a quarter of patients who participated in the study experienced negative side effects from cannabis.

The MDH study draws on data from survey results as well as enrollment, purchasing, and related health information to describe the experience of patients using medical cannabis from the program’s start on July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2016.

“Based on this evidence from the first year, Minnesota’s approach is providing many people with substantial benefits, minimal side effects, and no serious adverse events,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger.

Last week Derrick Morgan, starting outside linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, became the second active NFL player to call on the league to support cannabis research in order to see how specific compounds in the plant can help treat or prevent chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE.)

"If there's any evidence that this could help players, they owe it to us to explore it," Morgan told USA Today. "You hear about a lot of former players suffering from depression and dementia.

"Or the suicides," Morgan said. "[The NFL] could and should be a leader in this. If there's any evidence that this could help players, they owe it to us to explore it ... It's a legitimate ask."

Morgan went on to tell Katie Couric in an exclusive interview: "Given how much influence the NFL has on society, I think it would help the greater good. There's a lot of people suffering and a lot of people that can benefit from cannabis as a medical treatment."

Bipartisan, Bicameral Medical Marijuana Research Legislation Introduced in House and Senate

By Steve Elliott
Hemp News

There's a major development in federal cannabis legislation this week. Congressmen Andy Harris, M.D. (R-MD), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), H. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), and Sam Farr (D-CA) will be introducing the Medical Marijuana Research Act of 2016. This bill heeds the calls of the medical research community to address the burdensome processes that currently impede legitimate medical research on marijuana.

“As a physician who has conducted NIH sponsored research, I can’t stress enough how critical this legislation is to the scientific community," said Dr. Harris. "Our drug policy was never intended to act as an impediment to conducting legitimate medical research.

A new study called “Comparison of Outcome Expectancies for Synthetic Cannabinoids and Botanical Marijuana,” in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, shows that negative effects are significantly lower for natural, botanical cannabis than for synthetic cannabinoids.

In the study, 186 adults who had previously used both the synthetic and natural forms of marijuana, as well as 181 who had previously used only natural (botanical) marijuana, were surveyed about their expected outcomes of using either type of cannabinoid. The results showed that the expected negative effects were significantly higher for synthetic marijuana than for natural marijuana across both categories of use history.

Despite the more commonly expected negative effects of synthetic cannabinoids, the most cited reasons for using these compounds were wider availability, avoiding a positive drug test for cannabis, curiosity, perceived legality, and cost. For instance, synthetic cannabinoids are popular among members of the armed services, and in other occupations where a positive test for marijuana might get you fired, but synthetic cannabinoids would remain undetected.

Some multiple sclerosis patients use medical marijuana to reduce their pain and muscle spasms, and a Colorado State University researcher is launching a crowdfunding campaign to study possible benefits and side effects of this long-term marijuana use.

The research project will not involve providing cannabis or encouraging its use; it will simply examine existing users who have decided to treat their MS symptoms with medical marijuana and voluntarily agree to participate in the study.

Thorsten Rudroff, director of CSU’s Integrative Neurophysiology Lab, said local clinicians estimate that up to 50 percent of their patients are using marijuana to alleviate their symptoms.

“Marijuana use may have additional benefits, such as improving motor function, but this is all based on anecdotal evidence,” Rudroff said. “We don’t have scientific evidence that this is working, so we think this research could provide valuable information.”

Rudroff would like to conduct tests on at least 20 MS patients in northern Colorado who are already using medical marijuana and compare them to a control group of the same size who don’t. He said that Colorado, which voted to allow medical marijuana use in 2000, is an ideal location for the study.

“This research can’t be done in many other states that don’t have the same marijuana laws,” Rudroff explained. “Also, Colorado has one of the highest rates of MS in the country. More and more dispensaries are coming, and we need to give patients solid information.”

Research scientists and staff would be hired to navigate the complexities of getting marijuana studies federally approved, according to the report, prepared by the Oregon Health Authority.

The recommendation was included in a report submitted to the Oregon Legislature on Monday. Among the proposals is that the institute itself would grow and handle cannabis for research purposes.

"This institute will position Oregon as a leader in cannabis research and serve as an international hub for what will soon be a rapidly accelerating scientific field," according to the report. "No other single initiative could do as much to strengthen the Oregon cannabis industry and to support the needs of Oregon medical marijuana patients."

While the federal government allows research on marijuana, the approval process is tortuously complicated, and must use cannabis grow at a federal facility at The University of Mississippi.

Reefer Madness has been debunked yet again, as a large study conducted in the United Kingdom failed to find any evidence of a link between cannabis use and lower intelligence among teenagers.

The study was published online January 6 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and it found that any statistical association between marijuana use and decreased intellectual performance vanished when researchers took other variables into account, reports Eric W. Dolan at The Raw Story.

The study looked at 2,235 teenagers who participated in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a longterm study following children born in the Bristol area in 1991 and 1992. The kids had their IQ tested at the age of 8, and again at the age of 15. Nearly a quarter of the participants reported having tried marijuana at least once, and 3.3 percent had used it at least 50 times.

"The notion that cannabis use itself is causally related to lower IQ and poorer educational performance was not supported in this large teenager sample," werote lead resercher Claire Mokrysz of the University College London and her colleagues.

The Scientist, a documentary released by filmmaker Zach Klein which aims to promote the work of Professor Raphael Mechoulam, is available online for free viewing.

Filmmaker Zach Klein first met Professor Mechoulam when researching the ways in which cannabis reduced the symptoms of chemotherapy that his mother was experiencing while being treated for breast cancer. The resulting documentary follows Professor Mechoulam's attempt to answer the potent question: Are we missing something?

While the work of Dr. Mechoulam in the cannabis field started way back in 1960, he maintained a humble attitude when it comes to the diffusion to the general public of the incredible discoveries he was able to publish. Only a few years ago Dr. Mechoulam agreed to grant an exclusive right to Zach Klein to produce a documentary about his lifetime achievements, to help spread the word and reach out to patients that suffer from medical conditions that can be treated with cannabinoids.

"Here we have a group of compounds, an endogenous system of major importance, it is not being used as much as it should be in the clinic, it is of great promise in the clinic," explained Dr. Mechoulam. "Let's try to push it forward and maybe this film can push it forward a bit."

The Scientist was produced, over period of four years, in association with Fundación CANNA, a non-profit research foundation focusing on the study of Cannabis and its compounds.